


say them very quietly

by Tohje



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Feels, Bartender!Qui, Don't copy to another site, Fiddler!Obi, M/M, Magical healing blowjobs, Satisfyingly sappy ending though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 01:37:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18768553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tohje/pseuds/Tohje
Summary: A short, rather sweet quiobi modern au.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I could update at least something on Visions, I guess... *eyes the stinking, steaming pile of MESS of the story suspiciously and sweeps it back under the rug* Yeah. No. Not yet. 
> 
> In the meantime, enjoy one of the short stress-relief pieces I work on when Visions gets too overwhelming.
> 
> Wathgwen, my wonderful beta, I humble myself in front of your wisdom and knowledge.

“I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.” 

\- Richard Siken

 

**First gig**

 

Quinn notices him the second the band starts their first set on a rainy Thursday. He has those eyes his ma used to call fey eyes: endlessly shifting colors of the sea in October, brimming with mischief.

 

He plays the fiddle. Naturally.

 

Quinn notices his beauty the same way the hiker notices a lithe young buck in the misty morning field; self-sufficient and unattainable.

 

They might just have that something Tabia has been looking for. The singer, a white-haired boy, oozes aggressive confidence and flirtation. The guitarist has an easy smile, broad shoulders and nimble fingers. The drummer is a demure young girl until she sits down behind her instrument and lights up like dried birchbark. And the fiddler… he casts one look at the audience over his violin and everybody certainly pays attention to _him_.

 

They’re good, a perfect blend of tradition and modern, and they know how to get and hold the audience’s attention.  

 

Quinn goes back to wiping glasses.  

 

**Second gig**

 

“Can I borrow your lighter?”

 

The fiddler’s ginger stubble stands out in the light of the street lamp. Quinn starts, lost in his own head during the break.

 

Fey-eyes has dimples too, and he knows how to use them. Quinn hands him the lighter, makes sure their hands don’t touch.

 

“Thanks. I’ve got few moments. Garen is playing his solo pieces.”

 

Quinn grunts as an answer, not sure what he is supposed to do with this information. Two smoke trails mingle above their heads.   

 

“You’re Tabia’s bartender, aren’t you? God bless that woman, we needed some stability, you know. You’re gonna see us once a month or so.” Fey-eyes brushes a copper strand behind his ear and Quinn doesn’t know what to do with his hands, his eyes, his lungs. He lets his cigarette fall down to ground. He could go back inside.

 

“Yeah. Almost three years now. When I moved back here, she took me in.” Why is he telling him this?

 

“You’re one of her strays, like us.” Fey-eyes blows smoke and tilts his head, a cat-like gesture. “What does it mean? The ink?” He points at Quinn’s right arm.

 

“Something I used to believe in.” Did his cigs get mixed with Micah’s this evening? He hasn’t talked this much in weeks.

 

Dimples reappear. The younger man looks a tad sheepish. “Pry and get your nose pinched, my gran always warned. No offence. I’m Oberon - don’t roll your eyes, granny was the Bard enthusiast - but everyone calls me Obes.” He offers his hand. Quinn knows he stares at it too long. There are freckles on the back of the hand, against the cream. When he takes it, he can feel the musician’s calluses on the tips of his fingers.

 

“None taken. I’m Quinn.” They shake hands.

 

Obes flicks his cigarette at the exact same time the audience erupts into whoops and whistles inside the bar. “That’s my cue. Just, you know, why keep it around when you don’t have faith in it anymore?” It could be a cruel, young remark, except that the sea in Obes’ eyes looks kind. He turns his back without waiting for an answer and goes back inside. Quinn’s lungs suddenly remember what they’re supposed to do, how they are supposed to _need_ all the time. Oxygen, connection, touch, beauty; same symptoms, really.  

 

**Third gig**

 

The audience is larger this evening. It’s the eve of the public holiday, and the band is starting to make a name of themselves. This crowd is more raucous than their usual regulars; Quinn and Micah are soaked in sweat and it’s not even ten yet. Tabia has taken over the counter. Between her regal presence, Quinn’s height and Micah’s biceps, things seem to be under control, but Quinn has a running bet going on in his head on how many fights he has to stop in their tracks before the night is over.

 

Quinn notices - he’s not sure _how_ he notices, when this evening doesn’t allow room even for his own thoughts - that the fiddler never closes eyes as he plays. He flirts, he winks, he provokes, he urges over his instrument with a half-hidden smile. He steers the audience, as easily as if they were weathervanes and he an impish spring breeze. Even during a slower, more melancholic piece, when the violin laments and the audience listens enraptured, he doesn’t get carried away, but stares over their heads and meets Quinn’s eyes in passing.

 

It has been over five weeks and Quinn is leaning on the rear wall next to the kitchen door, catching his breath. Something flashes in the younger man’s eyes, a recognition. And Quinn’s lungs need again, but it’s not enough anymore, no, now his too-big hands _need_ too. Then the piece is over, and so is Quinn’s respite, and he loses the eye contact.

 

His revived yearning follows him through the rest of the evening like an aching joint.

 

Tabia is starting to suspect something - when you’ve got as much history with someone as they have, you’re bound to. Also, there’s the fact that all of a sudden Quinn walks like he expects himself to limp. Quinn avoids taking breaks for the next two hours.

 

Afterwards, he’ll go home and quelch this. With whiskey.

 

***

 

“Surely you have an open tab for us by now?”

 

Quinn turns back from the liquor cabinet, a tart answer on his tongue for yet another smart-ass in this evening, and faces a pair of twinkling eyes. Behind Obes, the rest of the band seems to be in good spirits, arguing lively over darts. The guitarist has the singer in a headlock. Obes cocks his head and smiles, and Quinn doesn’t want to acknowledge this, the warning signs, the ache, any of it.

 

“I’ll consider it, if you sing for your keep,” slips from Quinn’s tongue before his brains catch up. The sea in Obes’ eyes dances with laughter.

 

“I thought we just did that for almost two hours straight,” he counters.

 

“That was for them,” Quinn points at the merrily inebriated crowd and lowers his voice.  “This one’s for me.”

 

“Oh,” a faint blush creeps to younger man’s cheeks. He quiets his voice, unconsciously following Quinn’s lead. “You want me to sing for you? For… for free drinks?”

 

Quinn nods in a hopefully offhand manner, not trusting his voice anymore. Though the younger man is a fiddler, it doesn’t necessarily mean he likes to sing, much less in public. Once in a blue moon, it would be nice to plan things ahead and not follow in the spur of the moment.

 

Obes, honest to God, twirls around, eyes gleaming as he accepts the challenge, and stands on the fucking stool _._ His band mates realize something is going on. The guitarist releases the singer and the drummer girl hollers to Obes questioningly.

 

The fey-eyed man demands the attention of the bar and asks them for a beat using his feet. He gets a few dirty whistles and crude suggestions at first, but the mob soon recognizes one of the musicians from the earlier evening, gets excited and follows Obes’ lead.

 

Obes has a clear, if unfocused, tenor. Quinn could have that voice playing on record for a week in his small apartment, and his self-imposed exile would be that much easier to bear. It could fill the dark corners and dusty cupboards the same way it fills his throat. His hands suddenly feel heavy.

 

It occurs to Quinn only well into the morning, when he replays the image in his head  - the way the lights painted Obes as otherworldly yet sensuous, the way the heartbeat thrummed in a strong vein on his neck - that the younger man had closed his eyes in concentration.

 

It also occurs him too late, when his head has already fallen back against the headboard and he is moaning aloud, that he wants to lick that pulsepoint, wants to see that control, that concentration, that performance undone for him.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Fourth gig, before and during**

 

“So. That was a rude thing to do.”

 

“I beg your pardon?” Quinn turns, drying his hands on the towel, and oh, Obes scorned is a thing of righteous beauty.

 

“I sang for you, and you ran away into the night like in some old-fashioned flick. Talk about making a guy feel abandoned.”

 

“I left you a whole tray of tequila shots,” Quinn defends himself, aiming for quiet dignity and not sure he succeeds. “Tabia needed help behind.”

 

He doesn’t know how to explain it’s not Obes, well, it’s not _all_ Obes, but how the drummer girl had claimed the next spot and started _Black is the color._ He didn’t want this moment, already turning to a memory, to be tarnished, stained by the past. He wants Obes singing all by himself, and this was the only way.

 

It’s inevitable, this sequence, he knew from the start: his lungs need again, his hands need again and now he _wants_ things for himself. Like needing isn’t bad enough.

 

“I’m sorry. You were… it was lovely.” Inwardly, Quinn grimaces at his choice of words. Still, what he is supposed to say? You were exquisite, unearthly, and I think I want you under my hands, spread open and challenging me?

 

Obes scoffs at him, draws his chin up. “You’re not. Forgiven, I mean. Not unless I see you concentrating on me really really hard this evening. I gave you a gift and you overlooked it. You owe me. You’re _mine_ tonight.”

 

Quinn stares, mouth hanging ridiculously open, as the younger man practically saunters over to the rest of the band. There’s a eye-catching swing in Obes’ hips. It’s the opposite of an unconscious act. They start to tune up for the evening.

 

It takes some time before he realizes, in the middle of taking an order, that nobody has ever claimed him like that, not even for one night. Xan definitely never did.

 

Heat surges up his spine. He gets the order wrong, apologizes gruffly. Luckily the customers are in good spirits.

 

This puts his laboriously re-constructed equilibrium in serious danger. The copper-haired imp draws his gaze from across the room all the same.

 

It shouldn’t be possible to combine fire and seawater like that, like Obes does when he looks back at him over his fiddle. He plucks the strings, doesn’t answer when the guitarist asks him something.

 

Alright then. Two can play this game. Xan, and before him, others too, always said his intensity was too much, too intimidating, too demanding. He learned early to rein it in. Either Obes withstands, or it scares him away. Either he finds something that shouldn’t be possible, or, more likely, he’s left in his isolated asylum.

 

Quinn lets himself look, really look. The sinewy, lean, sinuous curve of the other man’s body. Pale skin, a teasing hint of russet chest hair where the shirt is unbuttoned. Worn out jeans hanging low on hip bones. A truly magnificent backside, making his hands ache with their emptiness.

 

Obes strokes his stubble and tosses a few strands of cupric hair from his eyes, exposing his neck but not vulnerable in the slightest, preening under the weight of Quinn’s gaze. Young and cocksure, self-assured. He flashes a smile with a hint of teeth at Quinn. Not intimidated by you, it says.

 

One night. One night without a crushing anvil on his chest, but instead another body on top of him, next to him, under him, beautiful, skilled, willing, warm. He can have that, and not undermine everything, can’t he?

 

Obes manages to steal glances through the first half hour of the gig. Quinn makes sure he stares back every time.

 

The crowd is decent-sized, and more knowledgeable and eager than usual, Quinn learns from the snatched snippets of conservation. There’s some sort of folk festival going on in the town, tonight’s gig is a part of it, and many people in the audience know the band from long past.

 

“Is something going on with Obes tonight?” brown-haired girl comments idly to her friends at the counter as the band plunges into a fast-paced piece head on. “Not that he’s playing badly or anything. He’s like… charged. Restless. Usually nothing gets under his skin.”

 

“Wouldn’t you like to try?” somebody teases her from the group. She snorts. “I would, but he doesn’t take the lead, if his reputation is right. Not like our dear friend Bruck over there.”

 

“Screw reputation. I would let him do all the things, and I consider myself boringly cishet,” one of the guys declares loftily, and the group bursts out laughing before removing themselves from the counter.                  

 

You’re probably not the only ones, Quinn thinks as he scans the audience. Why he, then, if reputation stands correct. He’s older, faded, reserved, grey hairs sprouting from his forehead and weaving through his long hair, too large and looming. It’s obvious to anyone who bothers to look that he still bleeds at the edges.

“This is a last-minute addition,” the singer interrupts Quinn’s gloomy train of thought, “but when your modest fiddler asks a favor, you don’t refuse. So, blame Obes for this, everybody. Or praise, if we don’t butcher it. ”       

 

Their version of the original song is restrained, guitar haunted, until Obes joins his voice to the refrain and the drummer girl truly picks up. Obes had closed his eyes earlier, but now they fly open and find Quinn unerringly. He lights up, like petrol soaked paper and fucking fireworks.

 

Quinn finds that he can’t look away, not even if he wanted to. He stands, transfixed, hand on the beer tap, when Obes sings for him and him alone. He burns into Quinn, and the melting _hurts,_ the same way orgasm and breathing and waking up sometimes hurt.

 

Obes doesn’t seek his eyes during the rest of the gig. They both know he doesn’t have to.

 

**After the fourth gig**

 

He waits for him at the back door. Quinn comes out with the trash and the scraps for the wild tabby and her three almost grown kittens. They yowl at him quietly and gather around the dish.

 

He’s so aware of the other man that it’s a miracle he doesn’t vibrate.

 

Obes has an unlit cig hanging from his mouth. He has his hands in his pockets; his breath forms a white cloud. The fiddle case sits on his feet.

 

Quinn uncoils himself and walks in front of him. Carefully, like he would be touching a proud, young stag, he lifts his hand, picks up a cigarette and throws it aside. Obes looks up, eye color shifting so quickly in the dark it’s like watching the windy North sea.

 

“Am I forgiven yet?” Quinn asks in a low voice.

 

“If you don’t kiss me, no, you’re not,” Obes answers, chin held high, standing his ground.

 

“Do you always get what you want?” he asks, but rests his hands on Obes’ shoulders  and leans in nevertheless.

 

Obes sighs, like he has been holding his breath all evening. Quinn makes sure to keep the kiss chaste at first, light and searching, nipping gently along the seams. Then Obes takes hands out of his pockets and moves into Quinn’s embrace, one long, warm line of contact in the cool night. “I don’t ask that often. You’re an exception,” he whispers against his lips.

 

 _Why on Earth you would make an exception for me_ , Quinn has time to think, bewildered, before Obes raises his hands and shoves them into his hair, pulls him in at the same time as he turns the kiss open-mouthed and wet, darting in with his tongue.

 

So many contact points, sparking, his scalp most of all. He stifles a shout and it comes out as a low groan as their tongues circle around each other, promising, teasing. _Touch starved_ , a clinical voice at the back of his head comments. He decides thinking is far too overrated anyway.  

 

Obes hisses, low-pitched, at Quinn’s reaction. He burrows impossibly closer, flush against him. Quinn can feel the jeans-trapped hardness, pressing into his thigh, and it twitches when Quinn tightens his hold and encloses the smaller man properly. He fits. He fits impossibly well.

 

“My place is close”, he mutters, breaking the kiss. It’s conveniently close to work, tidy, cramped and lonely. He lifts the younger man’s chin and licks the cleft, sucks the tender spot just below Obes’ jaw. He is rewarded with a shudder and a quiet moan. The younger man feels startled by his own noise in the quiet backyard.

 

“Y-yeah, let’s go”, Obes says, grabbing the case. They stumble forward. Obes starts to shiver; it’s a cold night and what is he doing, wearing a thin leather jacket and not much else?

 

If Quinn had been still thinking, which he resolutely is _not_ doing, he would be distressed by the surge of protectiveness.

 

The feeling intensifies as they stand in a narrow hallway under the crackling ceiling lamp, and the shivering doesn’t stop. Obes drops the case limply. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits outright. Quinn’s hands stop their caress. He freezes.

 

“Not like that. You didn’t do anything untoward,” Obes assures. “It’s just... out there, performing, at the front lines like we call it, I’m in control, nothing can touch me. Except you did. You cut through somehow. You… You feed strays, for fuck’s sake.”

 

“I could say the same,” Quinn mutters. He forces himself to relax, slides his hand along the younger man’s ribs, undemanding. “Let’s get you warmed up, alright?” And, bizarrely, it is alright. It’s more than enough.

 

“Do you want to eat something?” he asks from the endearing bundle of blankets sitting on his antiquated sofa in his living-slash-dining room a little while later.

 

“No, thank you. I’m too jittery after the gig. Maybe some hot drink, if it isn’t too much trouble.” Such a polite young man in place of the imp. Quinn rummages through his cupboards and finds some mulled wine from last Christmas that could probably survive nuclear winter. He warms it up in the microwave and tries not to think too much about the shifted atmosphere.

 

He sits next to Obes on the couch, a careful distance away, but Obes crosses the space immediately and leans into him while he blows to his too hot drink. Quinn turns his head into his fiery colored hair, and breathes. The mugs are steaming. It has started to rain sleet outside; winter’s fishing lines whip the window.

 

“I’m sorry. I don’t usually… can we start over? I really liked your kisses,” Obes offers mutedly. What a performance he delivers, out there. Quinn feels humbled, that this otherworldly man chooses to become more real, more vulnerable, unsure with him.

 

“Your call,” Quinn says quietly, and Obes gathers their mugs and places them on the coffee table and melts into him, shedding the blanket.

 

Obes’ mouth is spiced from the mulled wine. Clove, cinnamon, bitter orange. He makes the most alluring little mewling noises as Quinn undoes his shirt and tastes the flushed skin on his neck, sweeps his tongue over the lovely pink nipples, nuzzles the chest hair. “Too much?” he asks.

 

“Yeah, clothes on you,” Obes breathes, some of his old cheek restored. Quinn huffs, but proceeds to remove his own pullover. Obes’ eyes gleam in the dark.

 

“Up,” Quinn tells, firmly this time, and the younger man obeys, lifting his hips from the couch. His belt buckle clinks in Quinn’s hands when he slides the jeans down and off.

 

His hands cannot start shaking now.

 

“Has anybody ever told your gaze is the most ridiculously intense thing?” Obes asks. Quinn starts, realizes he had kept staring at the creamy skin, wiry muscles, scattered freckles, bony knees. “No, don’t look away,” he says when Quinn hastily lowers his eyes. “I like it. It keeps me grounded. You looked at me like that while we were on stage. I’ve never felt so defined.”       

 

Quinn makes an undignified sound. Sweet, kind-hearted boy. He sinks down from the couch, nudges Obes' knees apart and settles between them, buries his face in Obes' groin, ignores his knees protesting the cool floor. Inhales like a drowning man breaking the surface. Musky, male, heady scent, the black underwear. Obes’ hands come to play in his hair again, clutching and gentling in turn. Quinn mouths the hardening length through the fabric and is rewarded with a gasp and a sharp pull near his scalp. He makes an appreciative, low moan at that pull.

 

It has been so damned long, he realizes as he strips the boxers out of the way. He takes Obes’ cock in his mouth, long and somewhat slender, relaxes his gag reflex, swallows slowly all the way down until a surprisingly ginger pubic hair tickles his nose, and then he just stops. Savors the feeling of a salty taste and velvety hardness filling his mouth, resting heavy and anchoring on his tongue.

 

Obes gulps for air, his hands spasming in Quinn’s hair. “Please, I, _please_.” Quinn hums his affirmation and the cock twitches in his throat. He resolutely ignores the answering jerk in his own jeans.

 

He retreats almost to the head, sliding wetly, and spins his tongue around the sensitive glans, tipping in and tasting the bitter fluid. Obes’ thighs quiver from restraint. He taps them lightly, signalling it’s okay to thrust. The result is the loudest moan from Obes up to this point. The sound makes Quinn shudder.

 

Obes positions his hands on both sides of Quinn’s temple. He pushes up tentatively, carefully. Quinn is completely in this moment, nailed, pinned to it.

 

Obes makes a choked noise and starts to thrust in earnest. It rushes into Quinn’s head, drives out all the thoughts, leaving space only for sensations and reactions. It’s a relief so profound that he staggers to accept it. He opens his mouth wider, feels his throat impossibly fuller. There’s a moist strain of precome in the front of his jeans now.

 

He wants to see this beautiful young man stripped from both his public performance and his more private, inner restraints. He looks up, meets Obes’ dilated eyes steadily, and suckles him even further, never breaking the eye contact.    

 

The spasm running through Obes’ whole body seems to take him by surprise. His orgasm feels like it’s punched out of him, slightly acrid fluid flooding Quinn’s throat. Quinn gags just a little, and wills his larynx to go lax.

 

Obes pants, gasping, heaving breaths, and loosens his grip. Quinn has a little time to mourn the loss of sensation before the younger man doubles over and plants breathless kisses to his temple, to his hair, to the tips of his ears. It’s silent again, in the room and in Quinn’s mind. The sleet clicks against the window. His want is content to wait. He lets the softening organ slip out of his mouth.

 

“I want to reciprocitate, but I can’t seem to find my legs at the moment,” Obes says and snorts softly at himself. “Take me to bed?”

 

As Quinn gathers him to his arms and heads to the bedroom, Obes tucks his face into Quinn’s armpit and mumbles, “I’m gonna put you in a song. Many, many songs.”

 

And for the first time in a long, long while, this night and all the other nights stretching behind it in an endless queue don’t fill Quinn with quiet despair.


End file.
